Theresa Greeney, Had Law Enforcement Family

She Was Police Wife, Mother, Grandmother

Theresa C. Greeney never forgot Feb. 17, 1990, the day her son, Deputy John "Jack" Greeney III, was killed answering a robbery call on Broward Boulevard.

"Every once in a while I still have problems with it," she told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel at a memorial in 2000. "But I've grown above it right now and accept it for what it was."

Mrs. Greeney, 81, a Broward Sheriff's Office wife, mother and grandmother, died Sunday at her home in Cooper City. Near the end of her life she chose to be buried on the 16th anniversary of her son's death, which falls on Friday.

Mrs. Greeney attended the trials of her son's killers and spoke forcefully for the rights of victims' families and gun control, but did not turn bitter, according to her daughter Pat Hubrig-Fenton. After her husband, Broward Sheriff's Office Cmdr. John Greeney Jr., died in 1992, Mrs. Greeney joined the Cooper City Classy Clowns, a service group. As "Pippi" she marched in parades and mugged for school kids and nursing home residents.

"It never made her angry in her life," Hubrig-Fenton said of her brother's death. "She kept giving to people."

Born in Pittsburgh, Mrs. Greeney married into a law enforcement family. When her husband retired from the Pittsburgh Police Department in 1969, he signed on as Cooper City's police chief and the family relocated.

For eight years, until Cooper City started a professional fire department, Mrs. Greeney and her husband were members of a voluntary crew. "She was a paramedic and she trained to put out fires," Hubrig-Fenton said. Chief Greeney later joined the Broward Sheriff's Office.

On the night of Feb. 17, 1990, Deputy Greeney, 47, responded to a robbery in progress at Church's Fried Chicken, west of Fort Lauderdale. During a gunfight, he took four bullets from a semiautomatic handgun and died. The gunman, Lancelot Armstrong, and his accomplice, Wayne Coleman, were convicted of murder.

At Deputy Greeney's funeral, a third generation of Mrs. Greeney's family stepped forward. Hubrig-Fenton's son, Allan "Rusty" Hubrig, was a college junior at the time. Bonding with his uncle's colleagues, hearing their stories, he was inspired, his mother said.

"He came to me during the funeral and said, `Mom, I now know what I want to do.'" When he graduated from college he entered the policy academy. In May 1992 his grandfather, Cmdr. Greeney, pinned a badge on him; a month later, his grandfather died.

"It was like he lived for that," Hubrig-Fenton said of her father. Today, Broward Sheriff's Office Lt. Allan Hubrig works in Oakland Park.

In addition to her daughter and grandson, Mrs. Greeney is survived by four other grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and two sisters: Grace Conley, of Pittsburgh; and Elizabeth MacMurchy, of Portland, Ore.

Visitation will be from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Forest Lawn South, 2401 Davie Road, Davie. The funeral will begin at 10 a.m. Friday in Forest Lawn South.

Noreen Marcus can be reached at nmarcus@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4519.